


Fragile Beginnings

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Fear, Fragility, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, New Beginnings, Pregnancy, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16719007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jon struggles to accept Thayet fighting with her Riders during her first pregnancy.





	Fragile Beginnings

Fragile Beginnings

“What are you doing, my dear?” Jon asked his wife. She had blown into their bedchamber after a courier had arrived bearing reports of pirates raiding along the eastern coast and was now grabbing shirts and breeches from her dresser in a whirlwind that dizzied Jon. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Thayet didn’t spare him so much as a gaze from the storm she created as she snatched up her saddlebags with astonishing haste. 

“You look as if you’re packing to lead your Riders against the raiders along the coast.” Jon’s forehead furrowed watching her. “Yet you can’t be.” 

“Why not?” Thayet arched an eyebrow at him as she rolled up her clothing and tucked it into her saddlebags. Her imperious expression told him more firmly than words that he would regret overstepping his bounds if he tried to forbid her from charging off to subdue the pirate incursions along the coast. 

He hadn’t been thinking of prohibitions but rather the child she carried and her safety during her pregnancy. 

“You’re with child,” he pointed out placatingly as possible, eyes drifting over her stomach, which was just starting to show under the flowing clothes she favored in an attempt to avoid calling attention to her pregnancy. 

“Well-spotted.” Thayet paused in her packing to rub her palms over the womb where their first child grew. “What was your first clue?” 

Jon bit his cheek—tasting the iron of his own blood—to contain a snide retort before continuing levelly as if she hadn’t spoken, “To protect her health, a pregnant woman shouldn’t overexert herself.” 

He regarded his concern as perfectly valid and even noble, but Thayet had a sharply different perspective she wasn’t shy about sharing. 

“If you wanted a wife who would remain in confinement during her pregnancy, you should’ve married another woman,” snapped Thayet, chin lifting like a banner for battle. 

“I don’t want a wife who’ll remain in confinement. I want a wife who’ll survive pregnancy.” Jon’s temper finally flared at her deliberate obtuseness and obstinance. 

“Why would you think I wouldn’t survive pregnancy?” Thayet’s arms wrapped about her like a snug, shielding blanket. 

“One of my earliest memories of my mother was her almost dying in childbirth trying to deliver a second son to secure the succession.” Jon’s voice cracked as he recalled being barely old enough to talk and finding it impossible to understand what his father whispered to him about his mother being on the brink of death. To someone as young as him, death had been beyond his imagination in a way that no other monster was. “It was only years later Father told me that she had almost died giving birth to me and in her many miscarriages and stillbirths before that.” 

“Your mother was delicate, Jon.” Thayet bridged the distance between them to squeeze his shaking fingers gently, her flesh warm against his cold skin, and he noted inwardly that delicate was the perfect word to describe his mother. She had been delicate in her manners, her health, and her beauty. Her fragility, Jon believed, had only made her more beloved to her country, her husband, and her son, but it had also brought her to an early grave in the stony crypts below the palace. “I’m not nearly so delicate as her, Horse Lords be praised. I’m a K’mir in my blood and bones. K’mir women ride until they give brith.” 

“Then ride strong and swift against the raiders.” Jon guided her fingers to his lips for a tender, passionate kiss that assured him she was still alive with callused hands that proved how fierce she was in any fight. She was not delicate, that was what he loved about her, and no pregnancy could change that or confine her to Corus when pirates were raiding the coasts. “Until we meet again, may the Goddess hold you in the palm of her great hand, my love.”


End file.
